Geraldine Williams, a 67-year-old cleaning woman, can afford to hire her own help now – after scooping $294m (€237m), the second-largest undivided lottery jackpot in US history.

A gunman has surrendered peacefully to police roughly four and a half hours after he took nine people hostage during an apparent bank robbery, a police spokesman said.

Nine people have been taken hostage by a gunman during a botched bank robbery in the US.